


love

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Hurt Eddie Diaz, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Whump, i had no clue whether the violence was graphic?? i feel like not really but idk, time to beat up my boy, yeah babey you know what time it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: written for today's whumpmasinjuly prompt: love. eddie gets beat up, and calls buck to help, of course.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 181





	love

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! i wrote this for today's whumpmasinjuly activity, which is the first prompt we've had! i hope it's ok!!

It’s been a couple weeks since Eddie stopped street fighting. He’d have liked to say he’d gotten better at controlling the impulse to just  _ punch something _ whenever he felt upset, but he still occasionally felt it. On nights like tonight, for example-they’d had a rough shift yesterday, and Chris was at Abuela’s, leaving Eddie all alone to stew in his thoughts. 

But instead of using his fists, Eddie had elected to go for a run. It was a bit late for a run, sure, but he knew his neighborhood, and he needed a way to burn off some of the uncomfortable energy that had been building steadily inside him all day.

He was nearly finished with his run, about a block and a half from his house, when a figure stepped out of an alley, a silhouette in the dim glow of the streetlights. Eddie slowed to a walk as he approached the figure, who showed no signs of moving out of the way.

“Can I help you?” he asked, pretty sure the answer was going to be no, shifting slightly on his feet as he waited for something unpleasant to happen. 

The figure stepped forward a little, moving his face into the light. Eddie was startled to realize he knew the man-“Uh...Pete, right? We fought, a few weeks ago?” Eddie’d won, pretty easily, too, which gave him some confidence that, whatever this situation was going to be, he could handle it.

Pete’s lip curled at the mention of their fight. “I’ve been going to that ring for years, and suddenly some new kid comes in, gets lucky and beats me in front of my buddies? That don’t sit right with me. I’m gonna pay you back for that now, Diaz. Outside the ring.”

Eddie would’ve argued a multitude of points against this statement-it hadn’t been luck, he doubted Pete could call most of the people at the ring his buddies, there was no way in hell he was going to get beat by a man he’d already beat once...but before he could voice any of these concerns, Pete was on him, swinging a fist wildly. 

Eddie barely ducked the punch, lashing out with a hook punch that would’ve sent Pete reeling, if it hadn’t been for the kick that was suddenly delivered to his right knee, which sent him off balance and stumbling to the side.

He got back into position quickly enough, fists raised, bouncing on his feet as he waited for Pete to strike again. An uppercut, blocked by a swift downward movement of Eddie’s arm. An answering jab at Pete’s face, swept aside and transformed into a sharp strike against Eddie’s ear, which replaced the relative silence of the fight with a ringing sound that left him distracted just long enough for Pete to stick a leg behind Eddie, strike him across the chest, and shove him to the ground. 

Eddie pushed himself up halfway before a kick to his chest forced him back down, and then Pete was on top of him, and all Eddie could do was raise his arms and do his best to protect himself against the onslaught of punches aimed predominantly at his face. 

Eventually, he managed to push himself away from his attacker, sacrificing his face to a few solid, unblocked punches in the process but managing to gain enough leverage that he was able to rise into a crouch. 

Pete, evidently not particularly liking this development, bent slightly in order to shove Eddie back to the ground. Eddie took his chance then, springing to his feet, throwing a truly nasty punch into Pete’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards. He pressed on, ignoring the fatigue building up underneath layers of adrenaline, throwing punch after punch, not bothering to pay attention to when he got hit, until at last, he knew that he had nothing left to give. He collapsed to his knees, feeling the blood trickling down his face for the first time, tasting it on his lips and down his throat. He coughed, and shuffled himself backwards until his back met the cool brick of the closest building. He closed his eyes. 

He heard the diminishing, slightly staggering footsteps of Pete, who had apparently been satisfied with a job well done. And it had been, Eddie reflected, because here he was, bloody and surely bruising and leaning against the side of a building, completely alone.

_ Alone... _ he reached for his phone, and would have sighed in relief upon finding it relatively unharmed had it not been for the sharp pain that doing anything as strenuous as  _ breathing _ currently caused his aching chest. 

He called Buck, of course, hardly even thinking about what he was doing. Buck would come, and help him, and everything would be okay. Everything was always okay, eventually, with Buck around. 

By the fourth ring, Eddie thought maybe Buck was asleep, or mad at him, or maybe busy? But Buck picked up just as the call was about to go to voicemail, his voice sounding relaxed and comfortable and so  _ nice _ that Eddie forgot to say anything for a minute. 

“...Eddie? You okay?”

“What? Yeah…” Eddie said, sniffing in an effort to stop the blood dripping from his nose. “Can you come get me? I’m maybe a block or two away from my house, by, uh…” he looked around for a familiar landmark, and found one across the street. “That blue house that you think looks so nice, you know the one? Chris points it out when we go by.”

“Yeah,” Buck said, and Eddie could faintly hear him clattering around in his room, probably looking for some shoes or a coat. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. What happened?”

“Got beat up,” Eddie admitted, wondering how mad Buck would be. 

_ “Eddie.” _

“Just, hurry, please?”

“I’m on my way,” Buck said, and he sounded mad,  _ of course he was going to be mad, he probably thought Eddie was street fighting again… _

It hadn't been very long after Buck had hung up that his car was pulling to a stop in front of the blue house. Eddie called to him across the street, which hurt his chest, but got Buck to look over. He jogged across the street, quickly dropping to his knees in front of Eddie, his hands moving anxiously over Eddie’s body like he wasn’t sure what to do first.

Eddie decided to help him in that regard, and attempted to stand-Buck could help him at his house, or yell at him, or whatever, but what he wanted most at the moment was to get up off of the ground. He didn’t make it very far in his attempt before he was wavering dangerously, and Buck grabbed him, taking on the majority of his weight and helping him lean against the building, upright this time. He reached for his phone, and Eddie stuck out a bloody hand to stop him. “What’re you doing?”

“Calling 911,” Buck said, like it should have been obvious.

“What? Buck, no, don’t do that, I’m fine.”

“Really, Eddie? You’re fine?”

“Okay, not fine, but I don’t need a hospital. I’ll be okay, just, take me home? Please?”

Buck heaved a sigh, but nodded, slipping an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and leading him across the street to his car. “I’m not happy about this,” he said, as he started the engine.

“I know,” Eddie said. “I’m sorry.”

They made it back to Eddie’s house in less than five minutes, and were soon in the bathroom, Eddie perched on the edge of the bathtub, leaning against the wall for support, as Buck rummaged through the cupboards for the first aid kit.

Eddie was silent as Buck got to cleaning the blood off his face, barely wincing when the antiseptic got into a handful of small cuts. Every part of his body hurt, and it was all beginning to melt into a singular pain, so that he could hardly tell what ached or twinged or throbbed, only that it all  _ hurt.  _

“Buck…”

“Yeah?” Buck said, setting down a bloody cotton ball. He looked at Eddie, and the obvious concern and care painted across his face were nearly overwhelming, so that Eddie had to look away, staring deeply into the contents of the first aid kit.

“It hurts.” 

“I know,” Buck said softly, reaching up to push a few sweaty strands of hair out of Eddie’s face. 

“Can I have…” he trailed off as a wave of pain overtook him, but Buck, fortunately, and as always, seemed to know what he was thinking, and handed him a packet of painkillers from the kit. 

“Sorry. I should’ve given you those sooner.”

Eddie shrugged, or tried to, and winced. “‘S fine.” He thought to voice the question he’d had since he’d decided to call Buck. “Are you mad at me?”

Buck shook his head, pressing a band-aid to a particularly large scrape on Eddie’s cheek. “I just want to know what happened,” he said, “but I’m not mad at you, Eddie.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Eddie told him. “It was this guy, Pete. I fought him, a few weeks ago.” He paused for a second to catch his breath.

“Street fighting again, Eddie? Really?”

“No,” Eddie interrupted quickly. “No, I haven’t fought in weeks, I swear. He came after me tonight. I was out running and he attacked me. He was angry. Maybe drunk. I dunno.”

He lapsed into silence, and Buck nodded in understanding, moving to pull Eddie’s shirt off over his head. 

Eddie attempted to help with this, but moving his arms definitely made everything hurt worse, so he let Buck manhandle the shirt, stretching it horribly out of shape, until it was off.

“Jesus, Eddie,” Buck said softly, and Eddie looked down at his chest, which had already begun to bruise, making his entire torso look like some sort of terrible painting. He looked away. It hurt enough  _ not  _ looking at it.

“There isn’t much I can do about this, except make sure nothing’s broken,” Buck said apologetically. “But on the bright side, once this is done, that’s it, no more poking and prodding.”

Eddie nodded silently, trying not to think about how much this was surely going to hurt. 

Buck’s hands moved gently across his torso, pressing at various spots. Eddie winced as Buck hit an especially sore spot. 

“It’s okay,” Buck said, his voice every bit as gentle as his hands. He pushed again into the same spot, feeling for broken ribs, whispering more soft reassurances when Eddie winced again. “It’s okay, love.”

Eddie’s head was aching, and thinking was hard, so it wasn’t until Buck was carefully slipping a clean, soft shirt over his head that he realized what the other man had called him. He kept that revelation to himself as Buck led him to the living room, settling him onto the couch and heading to the kitchen to rummage around in the cupboards.

“Put on a movie,” he suggested. “It’s not very late yet, it might be nice to relax a little before you go to bed.”

Eddie, however, ignored Buck’s suggestion in favor of pushing himself up off the couch and slowly stumbling to the kitchen, where he paused, leaning against the counter and looking at Buck, who had his back to Eddie, busy making what appeared to be two mugs of hot chocolate. The light from the microwave, the only source of light in the room  _ (Buck was familiar enough with his kitchen, his home, him, that he hadn’t felt the need to turn on the lights), _ lit up the side of Buck’s face, and he seemed almost to glow in it, humming softly to himself as he waited.  _ God, Eddie loved him.  _

He stepped further into the kitchen just as the microwave beeped, and Buck briefly turned away from it to grab the hot cocoa packets. He stopped when he saw Eddie, barely standing upright, and hurried to his side to support him. Eddie lightly pushed him off. 

“You called me love.”

“Ah. You heard. I-”

Whatever excuse, apology, explanation, Buck would have provided was interrupted. “I love you,” Eddie said, finally locking his eyes to Buck’s, hoping that everything he felt could be seen, too. He would have held his breath, waiting for a response, but he was pretty sure he’d have passed out if he’d done that.

His only response was in the form of a question, soft and beautiful. “Can I kiss you?”

“Of course.”

It was more than he’d ever dreamed of-kissing Evan Buckley, bruised and sore, in his kitchen with the lights off on a Friday night, with water for hot chocolate slowly cooling where it still sat in the microwave. It was sweet and slow and  _ perfect, _ and he nearly melted, until Buck pulled away, looking at Eddie in a way he’d never been looked at before, and it was still overwhelming, but he smiled and looked right back at Buck, who gave him a grin so bright it was almost blinding.

Eddie leaned forward, trusting that Buck would catch him, and he did, pulling Eddie’s head to his shoulder and taking on some of his weight. They stood there in silence for a moment, drinking it all in, until the microwave double-beeped, reminding them of the mugs still inside.

“I better get those,” Buck whispered, pulling Eddie along with him to the microwave. He grabbed the mugs-“still warm, luckily”-and added the hot cocoa powder, Eddie never letting go of him. 

They made their way back to the living room, where Eddie promptly sank into the couch, curling up as much as his battered body would allow. Buck followed suit, sitting down a little closer than he might’ve before, wrapping an arm gently around Eddie’s shoulders. 

They turned on the TV, picking out a random movie that was about halfway through already. It was dumb and probably kind of terrible, but Buck laughed at the jokes in between sips of his hot chocolate, and Eddie thought to himself that this had to be his favorite movie ever. 

_ God, he was so in love. _ He looked at Buck, who looked back at him, smiling-he hadn’t stopped smiling since they’d kissed, and-no,  _ he  _ was not in love. Well, he was, but it wasn’t  _ only him, _ not anymore.  _ They  _ were in love, and Eddie-Eddie might have been hurting and aching, but he felt  _ wonderful, _ better than he had in a long time. Buck pulled him closer still as something exploded onscreen, and he leaned his head onto Buck’s shoulder, closing his eyes. He felt safe, warm...loved. He felt  _ right.  _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading this!! i had a lot of fun writing it and i hope it didn't suck too bad lol. please feel free to let me know what you think!


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